Child Support Provisions Considered But Not Enacted During the 2002-2005 Welfare Reauthorization Debate

Publication Date: February 2007

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Social conditions

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Abstract:

The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, Part D of Title IV of the Social Security Act, was enacted in January 1975 (P.L. 93-647) and most recently amended by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171). The CSE program is administered by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is funded by general revenues. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and nine tribal nations operate CSE programs and are entitled to federal matching funds. In FY2005, the CSE program collected $23 billion in child support on behalf of more than 17 million children. The CSE program is intended to help strengthen families by securing financial support for children from their noncustodial parent on a consistent and continuing basis.

Although the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (enacted February 8, 2006) included significant changes to the CSE program, it did not include many of the child support provisions that had been considered during the preceding four-year debate within the context of welfare reauthorization. This report discusses 12 such provisions that were passed by either the House or the Senate Finance Committee (or both). The Administration has included several of these provisions in its FY2008 budget. Of the 12 provisions, five aimed at enhancing CSE collection tools would have (1) eased the collection of child support from veterans' disability compensation benefits; (2) facilitated the collection of child support from Social Security benefits; (3) allowed the HHS Secretary to act on behalf of states to seize financial assets (held by a multi-state financial institution) of noncustodial parents who owed child support; (4) facilitated the collection of child support from longshore and harbor workers' compensation; and (5) required states to adopt a later version of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) so as to facilitate the collection of child support payments in interstate cases.

Other provisions included an array of measures aimed at making the CSE program more efficient and effective. The provisions would have (1) required the HHS Secretary to submit a report to Congress on the problems of undistributed child support collections; (2) designated Indian tribes and tribal organizations as persons authorized to have access to information in the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS); (3) changed the language of current law to require the Secretary of Education to reimburse the HHS Secretary for any costs incurred by the HHS Secretary in providing requested information on new hires (from the National Directory of New Hires, which is part of the FPLS) to help the Education Secretary locate persons who had defaulted on student loans; (4) increased federal funding for the CSE access and visitation program; (5) prohibited states from collecting child support from noncustodial fathers to repay Medicaid costs associated with the birth of a child; and (6) required each health care plan administrator to notify the state CSE agency when a child has lost health care coverage. The final provision discussed in this report would have gradually reduced the federal matching rate for CSE expenditures, from 66% to 50%. Appendix Table 1 shows the welfare reauthorization legislation in which these 12 child support provisions appeared. This report will not be updated.